Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.

[deleted] · 2013-12-10T12:42:38+00:00

"Never argue with an idiot... They'll pull you

down to their level and then beat you with

experience." - Mark Twain

[deleted] · 2013-12-10T07:22:56+00:00

That's a brilliant essay.

Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told.

The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you'd also have to make the same mistakes. Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that's very convincing evidence.

Like every other era in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. And anyone who makes the same mistakes probably didn't do it by accident. It would be like someone claiming they had independently decided in 1972 that bell-bottom jeans were a good idea.

If you believe everything you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s-- or among the Mongols in 1200, for that matter? Odds are you would have.

Back in the era of terms like "well-adjusted," the idea seemed to be that there was something wrong with you if you thought things you didn't dare say out loud. This seems backward. Almost certainly, there is something wrong with you if you don't think things you don't dare say out loud.

[deleted] · 2013-12-10T12:11:27+00:00

[permanently deleted]

autoNFA · 2013-12-10T18:11:42+00:00

If your aim in life is to rehabilitate the color yellow, that may be what you want.

On some level, you have to state your case, because then the loudest shouters get all of the airtime.

slcjosh · 2013-12-11T06:04:49+00:00

Jay-Z dropped a line, can't remember what song exactly but the line is:

"A wise man once told me don't argue with fools, because people from a distance, can't tell who is who."

Title	Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.
Author	json_
Upvotes	18
Comments	6
Date	December 10, 2013 4:39 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/TheRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1sivml/argue_with_idiots_and_you_become_an_idiot/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/TheRedPill/argue-with-idiots-and-you-become-an-idiot.8698 https://theredarchive.com/post/8698